Plus it's Universal Studio's 100th anniversary; they need a movie that's not only memorable like E.T. and Back to the Future, but also win academy awards, and Les Miserables fits the bill to compete with the Avengers.

The Avengers was amazing. It was the best superhero movie of all time, in my opinion. It won't win any Academy Awards though, except maybe in categories like "Best CGI" or something, because it was a comic book/sci-fi/supernatural type movie, and those films are never acknowledged by the mainstream award ceremonies.